The Elements Of Cooking With Michael Pollan

Fire, air, water and earth; or as author Michael Pollan experienced it: barbeque, bread, braise and beer. In his latest book, “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation,” Pollan challenges himself to master the basic technologies that have allowed people to turn raw into cooked.

The impetus of his journey was to highlight the possibility and importance of mastering the preparation of personal meals. His book explores the cultural shift of food responsibility from the home to corporation via packaged or prepared foods, and how this directly correlates with the rise in American obesity issues.

Serious warnings aside, Pollan is a celebrator of food, finding joy in the process of turning ingredients into meals and the effect this has on the way we view our own culinary consumption. By weaving the classical elements and elementary ingredients together he says that, “The word becomes literally more wonderful and wonderfully more literal.”

Michael Pollan is the author of seven books including “Cooked” and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” He speaks at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle, May 13 at 8:00 p.m.